Amina Blackwood MeeksOn International Women's Day in the year 2000, the organisation, Women Working for Transformation was officially launched. One of its objectives is to foster the kind of leadership necessary for change in Jamaica, such that it will impact positively on the soul case of the average citizen. The organisation has come to refer to this as transformational leadership. It has spent not an insignificant amount of time examining the ways in which the expression of the leadership of women is transformational.
On International Women's Day in the year 2001, three women, representing the major political parties vied for the seat in North East St. Ann. It was not the first time in Jamaica that women, though still under-represented in politics, would have faced the electorate and moved on to sit in the House.
In a real way, we have come a long way from the days of demanding the right to vote to stating that we have earned the right to be voted for.
Women are not breaking new ground here. What is critical is whether they enter politics by offering the type of leadership which allows us all to do business to achieve the social and economic objectives which we repeat every year but which continues to elude us.
The result of the by-elections is now history. But that is not half of the story. The rest has to do with the conduct of the campaign, the grace and dignity of the candidates after the results, and whether the process can be sustained.
Certainly in the run up to the elections we got a hint of how it is possible to do business. Few people who visited the area in the period immediately before and after the elections could escape the anger of the electorate at the ruling party. Yet, the candidates managed to conduct a campaign which saw reasoned debates, an absence of personal attacks and abuses, and which must be credited, at least partially, for the fact that there was no violent flare-ups even when the various parties were visited by some of their strongest supporters and defenders from outside the area.
Women Working for Transformation defines transformational leadership as that which "transforms anger into positive energy for change". A week is a long time in politics, even in these days when the weeks seem shorter. So only time will tell for whom or for what the bell really tolled in North East St. Ann on March 8, 2001. We would like to think that it tolled for stridency and anger for the sake of itself in national politics.
That we are acknowledging the ways in which divisive politics has contributed to the coarsening of the society, and that we recognise the role of transformational leadership for guiding us back to a more disciplined and gentler way of life, and the healing of the far too many things from which we need to heal.
In that sense, the by-elections must be a reminder that we cannot take for granted, half of the brains and power of the nation and confine it to so-called women's domain and still hope to make progress. That is, of course, provided that the women who offer themselves as leaders or find themselves in leadership positions remain conscious of their responsibility to build on the positive ways in which the political climate has changed as a result of the intervention of women.
In this International Year of the Volunteer it also gives us a chance to consider the real value of women's contribution, much of it largely made in their capacity as volunteers or for which the remuneration is so small that they might as well be volunteers.
Transformational leadership also sees power "as a means to serve and therefore is accountable for that use of power and service". And in that will be the real test. So much of the anger was about people being perceived as being too taken up with power, of failing to practically recognise that they exercise it on behalf of others, of enjoying it too much and manipulating others in order to hold on to it. So many voters, in the absence of other fora for speaking critically of the direction of their party without being accused of 'selling out' or disloyalty used their votes to make a final statement. For there can be no real growth and accountability for power if we only want to hear from those who only tell us that we are doing well.
If North East St. Ann is also a lesson about the maturing of the Jamaican electorate then it is also a warning that de same knife whey stick sheep wi stick goat, and we return to, or maintain, the old ways to our peril. Time now to consider what are the issues on which these women will continue to focus, which are women's issues in which the entire country has a stake. What are the needs of women which women are best able to articulate and pursue which bring benefits to the entire society?
Take for example, the vexing question of maintenance for children. There are many men whose manhood is assaulted by men who don't support their children. Yet this is seen as a women versus men issue. If, however, women succeed in getting this issue effectively dealt with, including the compulsory registration of fathers, more children would receive financial support to get through schools, more would be able to afford better nutrition, and the whole society would benefit from healthier and better educated human beings. And what of the needs of the rural woman, particularly those who work within or on the fringes of the tourist industry and how will these be addressed?
What does it really mean to put the interest of the citizens above the interest of party, or above the ratings of the International Monetary Fund? However you look at it, if North East St. Ann is to have meaning beyond the yo-yo voting syndrome in the Jamaica, the work begins now.
Amina Blackwood Meeks is a communications specialist.
